The Courage Performance Blog

I absolutely LOVE this picture of Arnold. The confidence, the achievement, the dedication to ridiculous dreams and the success that comes from hard work, that's what this represents. Whatever your thoughts about this man, he is GREAT. He came from nothing, out on the middle of nowhere, and he revolutionized a movement, became a celebrity and a political figure, wrote a book, and was pretty much an all around cool freaking dude. He embodies the journey, and the pride of making it, in this picture. It's inspiring.

So what does it mean to be great? Must you star in movies? Win awards year after year? Climb corporate or government ladders and achieve financial success? Heck no man, all you have to do is stay committed to your goals, whatever they might be, and get there! Arnold set some insanely lofty goals, and what made him great was that he achieved all of them; yep, ALL of them. You might not want to be a movie star, or a politician, but whatever it is you do want to do, commit to it. This obviously is the tough part. Most people out there have no clue how to stay committed, and because of this end up never reaching there potential. I would say most people have a damn hard time being great.

Now everyone has great qualities: you are a great parent, great at your job, great in conversation and on and on. If you really think about it, every single person in the world has something great about them. But the real question is: what does it take to be a great person, to have a complete and GREAT life. Side note: At this point I feel like if i say "great" one more time my brain is going to turn to jelly or something! OK, back to it. All I know is that I've been thinking so much about how to take all the things I am good at, completely confident about, and make them more and more a part of my life. If I am constantly striving to succeed at the things I most desire on life, it will be very difficult to live an UN-great life.

What I mean by this (and this is the "committed" part), is that taking time to pursue things that I really don't want to do, take away from true greatness. If I want to create a health and fitness movement based off the idea of understanding yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually, but spend most of my time working a 9-5 and playing on Facebook, I am destined for an average or below average life. If I really want to make a change in the world, have specific goals for myself in my life, and achieve as many of the crazy daydreams I have in my head, I need to take some time each and every day to take a step in those directions. If I am truly committed, I'll take more than just one step each day. You see, while some people might sit back on their couch and talk about how lucky those incredibly successful people are, they are just lying to themselves. Sure there is probably a ton of luck found by great people, but they found it because they were constantly searching for better. And when you put yourself out there, good things are bound to come your way.

This is kind of an interesting post for me. I literally was staring at this picture of Arnold and decided to put it up on my blog. I then just started writing whatever came to me thanks to the thoughts that image inspired. Now sitting back for a couple minutes I find myself coming back to something I have always used when trying to get and stay committed to something. Just ask. Go look in the mirror at yourself (most people can't actually do this, it's crazy) and ask yourself what you want. Then ask yourself how you can get it. Then tell yourself to go do it. If you can't do this with complete seriousness, you have some decent demons and emotional issues you might want to deal with. And you may have a tough time staying committed to all things GREAT! I'm not saying you won't be successful, I'm just saying you might not live the life that is perfect for you. Most people are pretty good at telling when someone close to them is lying. Go see if you can tell if YOU are lying to yourself. You'll know, deep down. Try it.